None of us is getting any younger, and time to make major changes about the most important relationships in our life is necessarily limited. When we were younger many of us experimented with different ways of relating intimately, we questioned a lot and often suffered a lot! At some point most of us tried the standard marriage-couple route, and many of us are still more or less successfully finding that it works for us. But there are alternatives and, having more time and energy than when we were working our socks off to raise children and pay the mortgage, now is a good time to think carefully about what sort of intimate relationships we really want and what we want our later years to look like in terms of company, intimacy, and mutual support.

We are fortunate to live at a time when relationship choices, especially for older people, are expanding, and when the traditional model of till-death-do-us-part coupledom is necessarily being questioned. More people are asking whether one person can ever offer everything we need in the way of companionship and closeness, and this is particularly true for older people, when illness or death is more likely to leave the surviving partner without a significant relationship. For many older people, and it seems to be particularly true for women, close same-sex friendships and friend networks offer an important source of support and solidarity.

Another important development in recent decades has been the rapid growth of online “dating,” which for those comfortable with screens and keyboards has enabled us to find, meet and connect with like-minded people both nearby and further afield. For older people especially, “dating” often seems an inadequate term for what we are looking for, yet if used intelligently such services can give us the opportunity to expand our relationship horizon and find those elusive like-minded souls.

When thinking about relationship styles it’s often useful to open up to possibilities beyond what is considered appropriate to people of our age, whatever that might be. In many ways we are relatively free of the need to conform, so why not use your remaining years to experiment a little? Who says you can’t cuddle with your same-sex friend, have more than one intimate partner at a time, see what it feels like to visit a nude beach with your friends? As long as you’re honest with yourself and others, responsible for your choices, and basically content, now is the time to explore the relationship style that truly works for you.